Barney's Legacy

You may remember I lost Barney, one of my garden helpers, earlier this year. Sadly, he succumbed to rot.

One of the plants he was looking after was eucryphia glutinosa ‘Nana’, a Chilean shrub. The standard form grows up to thirty feet tall, but ‘Nana’ is a dwarf selection, only getting three or four feet high. It was planted in the shelter of a large viburnum, but was never happy there, leaning away from its neighbour in an attempt to get more light, and never carrying any blooms.

Last autumn, the viburnum came out. The eucryphia now looked to be in the wrong place – too close to a nearby rose. But eucryphias have two vices – they dislike root disturbance, and they take time to “settle in” before flowering. With fingers firmly crossed, I dug it up in the late autumn with as large a rootball as possible, and moved it about three feet to its new position. Would it notice?

Early signs were promising. With a mild winter, it was soon showing signs of new leaves, and carried on as if nothing had happened. It had survived. However, earlier this month, I noticed these buds.

Today, the first flower opened, ready for a visiting group tomorrow. It is now flowering for the first time, six years after being planted.